Editorial

It is my great pleasure to present you the second issue of Journal of the Turkish-German Gynecological Association (J Turk Ger Gynecol Assoc) in the publishing year of 2018.

Our submission traffic is also progressing in a healthy way. Due to J Turk Ger Gynecol Assoc’s increasing international popularity and visibility, the number of international submissions we receive has almost tripled over the past 12 months and it is nice to see the quality of submissions is also rising.

Increasing submission numbers and the quality of these submissions makes our jobs as editors easier and harder at the same time. With each new issue of J Turk Ger Gynecol Assoc, we are trying to further increase the quality of our content. We are glad to see that this consistency in quality has translated well into our readership numbers. Number of hits we have received on PubMed has almost doubled over the past 12 months. Thank you for your interest.

Research is a fundamental aspect of academic life. In most journals, however, the quality of the publications varies. Some papers are not clearly written, have poorly described methods, or use tools of low validity and reliability in spite of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). The JIF has emerged as a tool for ranking, evaluating, categorizing, and comparing scientific journals. The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), a component of Thomson Scientific, was behind this development.

Journal Impact Factor (JIF) has been used in assessing scientific journals. Other indices, h- and g-indices and Article Influence Score, have been developed to overcome some limitations of JIF. Impact factor is a commonly used indicator for evaluating the performance of a scientific journal. There are some difficult and easier ways to help improve a journal’s impact factor. The most difficult—but at the same time likely the most consistent—way is to publish high quality articles (Aydıngöz Ü, Diagn Interv Radiol 2010; 16: 255-256).

* Journals should find referees (i.e., reviewers) who have already published in journals with an international scope.* Journals published in countries where English is not a native language should be printed in full-text English.* Journals should prepare guidelines for their reviewers and find ways to ensure their use.* Publishers with monetary resources should consider giving awards (e.g., “Outstanding Reviewer of the Year”) to attract and/or motivate reviewers.* English-language check by native English-speaking experts should be part of the procedures an accepted article should pass through.* Once an article is accepted for publication, a full-text HTML and/or PDF version should be prepared ahead of print and a digital object identifier (DOI) number should be assigned for the article.* Titles and abstracts of articles should be tailored to render them high visibility on the Internet search engines while preserving their intended meaning.* Review articles in general have a higher likelihood of earning citations. Priority should be given to review articles on dedicated subjects of interest to wide masses of prospective authors. Soliciting review articles from experts on the field should be a priority task for editors, although it can be very challenging to acquire them.* Article evaluation times should be decreased to the possible minimum. An effective online system for referees has to be established.

I am very glad and satisfied to say that The XII. Turkish German Gynecologic Congress, held in “Elexus Hotel” in Kyrenia, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) between the dates of April 27th and May 1st, 2018 with a great success. With more than a thousand registered participants, 2 Live Surgery Sessions, 1 Panel, 4 Keynote Lectures, 122 Lectures, 6 Precongress Courses, 3 Satellite Symposiums, 214 Oral Presentations, 148 Poster Presentations and 32 Video Presentations. This was made possible with your invaluable scientific contributions. I would like to thank to all participant once again for coming to Cyprus to share their expertise with us. We have had a tremendously positive feedback from the congress participants on the quality of the scientific presentations and the organization of the congress.

Finally, you will read many interesting and good paper in this issue. Papers from all over the world help to us increase our index scores. I am looking forward to see your scientific collaboration with us.